A Tale of Two Goats: Guilt and Shame

While we often read our Torah portion in Hebrew and English, we have decided to only read today’s portion in Hebrew. There are two reasons for this: First, frankly, today’s service is long enough. Second, the portion is... kind of gross. Like many other portions in Leviticus, it talks of a sacrifice offered to God, and there is description of slaughter and blood and burning fat. No thank you.

But there’s a reason why we read this portion. It describes the ancient ritual of Yom Kippur. We no longer engage in these ancient rituals, as we have shifted from sacrifice to prayer, but there is much we can learn from this ancient practice.

On all other days besides Yom Kippur, one can atone by bringing a goat as a sin offering to the Temple. The priest puts their hands on the goat to put the person’s sins onto it before slaughtering it. We might assume the same would be true for Yom Kippur, yet we see a different ritual for this day.

Today we have a tale of two goats. One is still sacrificed, but it is not the goat that the priest places the people’s sins onto. The sins are put onto a second goat, and instead of being sacrificed, that goat is sent into the wilderness, to a mysterious place called Azazel.

We have no other mention of Azazel in the Torah. Many scholars believe it to be a compound word, combining two Hebrew words, ez and azal, the first meaning “goat” and the second meaning “to go away.” Azazel then references both the goat that goes away, as well as the place the goat goes to.

In the first English translation of the Bible, William Tyndale translates Azazel as “the escapegoat.” Over time we dropped the e, and thus we get the word scapegoat.

Despite a detailed description of these rituals, we are not told why the sin offering alone is not sufficient for Yom Kippur. Why do we need the scapegoat?

Medieval scholar Maimonides says that this ritual is a metaphor for casting our sins away as far as possible so we can be freed of them. While that makes sense, it doesn’t explain why killing the representation of our sins is enough on all other days, but not for Yom Kippur. Killing our sins could also be a powerful metaphor, and yet today we symbolically kill them and send them away. Why?

Our ancient and medieval sages have no answer. However, the modern scholar Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, zichrono livracha, has an interesting interpretation.

He references a line of Torah that appears later in the same chapter which says: “On this day your sins shall be atoned, so that you will be cleansed.” (Lev 16:30) Rather than thinking of this as a causal statement, if the sins are atoned then cleansing will happen, Rabbi Sacks separates the atonement and the cleansing.

According to Rabbi Sacks, these two goals require two rituals. While the typical sin offering satisfies the first goal of atonement, it does not address purification. Therefore, another ritual is needed.

And this is where Rabbi Sacks brings modern thinking into his interpretation. He references the idea that guilt and shame are two distinct experiences. I had always heard Brene Brown’s differentiation, where she says that guilt is I did something bad and shame is I am bad. Rabbi Sacks affirms this distinction, saying that guilt attaches to the act while shame attaches to the person.

However, he also brings in another distinction described by Ruth Benedict, who says guilt is internal or personal, while shame is external or social. Guilt is our own self-conscious, while shame is the embarrassment at having been exposed. While guilt is unavoidable, we may try to escape shame by hiding or running away.

Rabbi Sacks applies these distinctions to the two goats of Yom Kippur. The sin offering is one of atonement, absolving us from our guilt, making amends for our actions. However, in order to be purified, we need a way to cleanse us of our shame. Shame does not disappear once we are forgiven; it lingers because it attaches to us, not our actions. Even if our actions are forgiven, the shame remains. Because shame makes us want to hide or run away, we place our shame onto a second goat, and send it off never to be seen again.

It’s interesting how the word scapegoat has evolved over time. It now means the one who takes the fall, but originally it was the one who carried our shame. I’m curious about the connection. Perhaps in our society, we believe that shame must be punished. So the one who carries our shame inevitably becomes the one who takes the fall. We not only get to point the finger at someone else to avoid it facing our way, we also get to absolve ourselves of any shame we might have otherwise felt.

We see extreme examples of this in society, but I think this kind of projection is also an everyday occurrence. Psychologist Carl Jung suggests that what we hate in others is a reflection of what we don’t like about ourselves. I hear this all the time when anyone suggests that two people might not get along because “they’re too similar.” Likewise, I often see that couples have contrasting personalities that are complementary, rather than similar ones that may compete.

While we may also dislike traits in others that we don’t have, that doesn’t apply to the scapegoat. The scapegoat’s purpose is not to hold our general grievances, but specifically our shame. We want to expel the parts of ourselves that we are embarrassed of.

Disliking something about ourselves can at times be a powerful motivator. Perhaps we try extra hard to be punctual because we know we can run late. Maybe we’re especially mindful of our words because we know we have a tendency to be blunt.

But I feel like more often than not, disliking something about ourselves can hold us back rather than create opportunities for growth. We may feel like “that’s just the way we are,” so we give up on trying to be better. We may go into a shame spiral, believing that we are bad people, and beat ourselves up instead of giving ourselves grace. Or perhaps we give ourselves too much grace, unable to deal with our self-disappointment, and blame others for our own mistakes.

We may even treat parts of ourselves as a scapegoat: metaphorically sending it away, out of sight, so we can pretend it isn’t really there. We may avoid confronting our problems and choose to ignore them instead.

While Rabbi Sacks suggests that forgiveness does not dispel shame, I wonder if that’s really true. Maybe when the forgiveness is shallow, in a sort of “forgive but not forget” kind of way. But what if the forgiveness goes beyond an agreement to move forward – what if it involves not just apology, but repair? What if the wrongdoer doesn’t just vow to do better, but to be better?

The distinction is one of intention: the sin will not be repeated not just because the wrongdoer doesn’t want to get caughtagain, but because the wrongdoer doesn’t want to cause harm again. That is a different lesson learned, and I believe it could produce a different kind of forgiveness.

But this kind of forgiveness doesn’t just come from the one who’s been wronged. The wrongdoer must also forgive themselves. If they continue to think of themselves as bad, they may think true change is impossible.

Perhaps the scapegoat was not meant to be an “out of sight, out of mind” situation. Our sins were not only forgiven, but they were removed. As Rabbi Sacks said, it was meant for purification. Perhaps it gave us the ability to believe we could be better.

We don’t have goats to bring us atonement or purification, and it doesn’t work as well when we put our sins onto other people. So we need to find a new pathway forward. I think it’s helpful to think of the Yom Kippur atonement process in two steps: we not only need to ask for forgiveness, but we need to believe that we can be freed from our shame. We can’t be better if we hold onto self-hatred. Forgiveness from others is the first step, and true repair of harm is the second step. Only then can we forgive ourselves and move forward as new people, cleansed of the shame that felt like a stain on our souls.

May this Yom Kippur not just be a Day of Atonement, but a Day of Cleansing. May we wash ourselves of the shame that makes us want to hide or run away. May we enter this new year refreshed and ready to be individuals we can be proud of.